U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted two additional documents for the February 21, 2012 Advisory Committee on Commercial Operations of Customs and Border Protection (COAC) meeting. One of the new documents posted is the 12th Term COAC Membership Directory for 2011-2013, which provides the name, title, and company name and address for COAC members and subcommittees (here). CBP has also posted draft submission instructions for CBP Bond Form 301 (here). All materials for the February 21 COAC meeting are available here.

Public Knowledge and a Canadian law professor urged the U.S. Trade Representative to keep Canada off the list of countries deemed weak in intellectual property protection. Canadian laws are sometimes stronger than those in the U.S., they said in comments to the USTR on the 2012 Special 301 Report. Canadian laws “provide effective enforcement mechanisms” and strong rights to all copyright owners, including U.S. copyright owners, PK said in a press release. Placing Canada on the “watch list” would only lead to undermining the legitimacy of the Special 301 process, PK said. PK filed the comments with Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa.

The Xbox 360 was the best-selling videogame system for the sixth straight month in January, but sales of it and every other system fell from a year ago, according to U.S. sales data released by NPD. Retail videogame industry sales, meanwhile, were weaker across the board in all categories compared to January 2011.

International online piracy is a chronic problem that continues to harm U.S. copyright holders, content groups told the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for its 2012 Special 301 review (http://xrl.us/bmrn5z). Rights holders said international piracy hot spots like China, Canada, Russia and Brazil should remain on the USTR list of intellectual property-infringing markets. Comments were due Friday, though foreign governments have until Feb. 17 to file.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission will hold a symposium on phthalates screening and testing methods on March 1, 2012, in order to review available and emerging technologies for detecting phthalates and to stimulate discussion of technological needs to improve testing methods. According to CPSC, the CPSIA’s phthalate restrictions, coupled with its testing and certification requirements, have created challenges for manufacturers, retailers, and third party testing laboratories. The symposium will also be webcast.

Despite much pre-holiday chatter about social media’s growing role in Black Friday sales and overall holiday season shopping, it was the more traditional methods -- print ads, email and company websites -- that were the preferred means of finding deals, said a survey from Crowd Science. When searching for holiday deals, 25 percent of consumers surveyed chose company websites as their favorite method, followed by print and hardcopy promos at 15 percent. E-mail notifications were third at 13 percent and 9 percent of those surveyed said they conferred with friends or family about deals. Three percent sought out Facebook for promos and only 1 percent used Twitter, with 25 percent reporting no preference for deal mining, Crowd Science said. Nearly a quarter of respondents preferred doing all of their holiday shopping online, while one in five respondents said they worried about security when buying online, it said. The study was done in two waves between Nov. 16-Dec. 29. The research was done across the Crowd Science network with a sample of 5,301 respondents, the company said.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has updated the following PPQ electronic manuals through January 18, 2012 (since the last update dated January 9, 2012):

The Patent and Trademark Office is requesting comments by March 12, 2012 on a revision to a currently approved information collection concerning the Madrid Protocol in order to add a new item - the Combined Declaration of Continued Use/Excusable Nonuse and Incontestability Under Sections 71 and 15 (Form PTO-1553) - which was not previously covered under this collection.

This is a reminder that comments are due January 23, 2012 on the Consumer Product Safety Commission's notice on ways to reduce the cost of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) third party testing requirements for children’s products that are consistent with assuring compliance with any applicable consumer product safety rule, ban, standard, or regulation. Based on the comments received, CPSC may prescribe new or revised third-party testing regulations.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued an order under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act) debarring Anneri Izurieta for a period of 30 years from importing articles of food or offering such articles for importation into the U.S. FDA bases this order on Ms. Izurieta's conviction of six felony counts under Federal law for conduct relating to the importation into the U.S. of dairy products. The order is effective January 13, 2012.